Conventionally, there has been known a technology in which, when a user sends an image to a server where web-based image search is available, the user can acquire relevant information from the server. Here, the relevant information is information relevant to images that are the same as or similar to the image that the user has sent.
The conventional technology described above uses a web-based image search technology. This technology does not change a range of databases to be searched depending on a user who requests the relevant information. Thus, it is difficult, for example, for a user to extract relevant information by referring to only a group that contains images captured (registered) by the user with the conventional technology.